resignation as a meanes to our exaltation in the time of visitation which is to be understood when God shall think fit to look upon us with the eye of mercy 7. It were an injury to Gods goodnesse for us to cast about for that which God himself takes care for that is our soules good the care of that is his and our rule of that is by him laid unto us so in that affayre we have rather to do what is commanded already then to be solicitous about it as if it were not done And to be solicitous of Temporals is an unchristian care and therefore often forbidden in point of perfection however tolerated in regard of humane infirmity but moderate care is alwayes allowed Christians in order to Temporals when anxious solicitude is forbidden them by many texts of holy writ 8. Sobriety is the best companion of watchfulnesse and therefore both are recommended And because our watchfulnesse is to be perpetual therefore our sobriety must be so too but especially towards night when our hearts onely are to keep the watch whilest our senses are asleep and this because the devil is then most busie in temptations when men are least able to resist having as it were but their wish awake and their will asleep hence all spiritual men recommend temperance towards bed-time both in meat and drink hence the Completory begins alwayes with this very verse to put us in mind with what purity we ought to go to bed having our profest enemy alwayes awake and ready to devour us if he find us off our sober guard 9. Happy we that by the least resistance are sure of victory against this ravenous devil for maugre all his malice and all his power he cannot hurt us unlesse we yeeld our consents to his Temptations Here is added that we must stoutly resist him and believing too because so we get compleat victory for by resistance we overcome him by fortitude we bind him captive by Faith we take away all his armes and power that is by firm stout and constant Faith And again our resistance will have the more force because of what followes in this verse we never are left alone but have alwayes our fellow Souldiers to help us in this Fight against our enemy who never tempts us alone but all other good men at the same time and we have share in their greater resistance by adding what our weaknesse is able to do 10. This next verse comes yet more home to our comfort and assistance telling us besides the help of our fellow creatures we have the help of our omnipotent Creatour against this enemy of mankind the God of all grace who having called us to everlasting glory will not if we help our selves permit the devill to snatch us away into his kingdom of darknesse so that being designed for glory we cannot fear the want of grace for that is the seed and glory the fruit of Gods goodnesse in us O who seeing how much Christ suffered to purchase us patience would not gladly suffer this little we are told must be indured if we will hope for victory Let us therefore with the same zeal begin to suffer as we would desire the happy end of it which is assured victory and glory 11. This last verse minds us that the victory is Gods and the honour of it his though the reward by his mercy be our eternall glory too The Application WE have had hitherto the holy Ghost the sacred Trinity and the blessed Sacrament to help us on in our long journey between Pentecost and Advent which we are to march all upon the feet of Charity but now we must expect no more such speciall helps suffice it we have had last Sunday the corroborating repast whereof Elias his refreshment under the Tree in the desert was but a type or figure when yet he was told that little bread should inable him to his journeyes end although he had a great wâ—y to go after that before he came to the mount Horeb so beloved must our charity from this day forward march upon the late refreshment of the blessed Sacrament till we come in our annuall journey to the mount of Advent the mount of expectation the mount that leaves us on the top of the highest mystery of our redemption the Incarnation of our Lord God where his first stoop to earth was our first step to heaven 2. Now for as much as we shall in this march find charity sometimes handed on by other vertues as last Sunday most properly by holy fear sutable to her in so long a journey and through the many dangers which she was to meet withall in the desert of this world and because at other times she will be in a manner out of sight and carried on with the crowd of other vertues thronging about her to secure themselves by her and to be her guard as they are bound she being sovereign to them all we must not therefore think our design is ill laid and that our obligation ceaseth as to the practise of charity when in the holy Text other vertues are more visible then she for there want not good Divines who grounded on S. Paul his definition or description at least of this majestick vertue affirm there is indeed no other vertue but charity both because God himself is called charity and because in heaven all other vertues are refunded into her so that in these Divines opinions even Faith Hope Humility Patience Obedience and all other vertues whatsoever are but charity believing hoping submitting suffering obeying or the like as one and the self same man by the severall faculties of his soul by his severall senses and members of his body is doing those exercises that such faculties such senses and such members are necessary for Be these Divines right or wrong it boots not to our purpose more then thus to let us see all our actions are good or bad according as they partake or want of charity to give them life or to declare them dead 3. This premised see how humility resignation to Gods holy will sobriety vigilance and a strong faith bring charity along this first-dayes journey after the repast she had last Sunday as above And though the Text tell her she is to carry us through the ravenous Lions walk yet we see the close of this Epistle is that the God of all Grace the God of charity will secure us through these dangers for his own glory if we but love him and will cast our cares on him and will rely upon his multiplied mercies whereof we have dayly and hourely huge experience if we will make him our Ruler him our Guide and if we do not loose our charity to him our Creatour by wasting it away upon creatures unworthy of our love because we cannot grasp temporall felicities without hazard of loosing eternall happinesse Yes yes assuredly this ought to be our duty now Whilest to this very purpose holy Church prayes to day
Ghost is made manifest who is the Authour of all supernatural gifts The profit whereunto these gifts are given is rather to the Church then to him that receives them for gratuite graces ever avail the Church but not so him who receives them as miracles may be wrought by a sinner who doth not profit by them perhaps at all yet the Church doth 8. By the word of wisdome is understood the power to explicate deep mysteries of Faith as of the B. Trinity Incarnation praedestination or the like By the word of knowledge or science is understood the power to direct mens actions or manners that they be rational at least Thus S. Augustine lib. 12. Trinit cap. 14. 15. distinguisheth between wisdome and science or knowledge 9. By Faith here is not understood that act of Theological vertue which is common to all Christians but an act of particular confidence in God whereby it is believed he will by vertue of that our confidence work a miracle being asked so to do by such a Faith as is able to remove mountains Others understand by Faith here a deep understanding inabling to contemplate and explicate the mysteries of Faith 10. By miracles here are understood those which are extraordinary and are exercised not onely upon the body but even on the soules of men such as was that of S. Peter upon Ananias and Saphyra commanding them to dye By discretion of spirits is meant when God gives one man the grace to see into the very thoughts and intentions of others to know when an action is done by a good or evil spirit by God or the devil a gift to be begged by ghostly Fathers and conducing to their conduct of soules These gifts S. Hilarion was noted to have By interpretation of languages is understood a special gift frequent in the primitive Church whereby men illuminated for that end did give the true sense of Scripture and of those who being ignorant yet had the gift of Tongues and to spake more then themselves well understood but were by Interpretâ—rs expounded 11. Namely as that Spirit as the holy Ghost pleaseth The Application 1. St. Paul in this Epistle first puts the Corinthians and â—n them all other Christians in mind of the horrid Nothing that they were before their conversion from Gentilisme to Christianity And his aym in this is that as nothing was more abominable to the Gentiles then the name of Jesus Christ so nothing ought to be more reverential to Christians then that most sacred and most saving name insomuch as S. Paul concludes it is an Apostacy from God a relapse to Gentilisme not onely to use irreverence to the name of Jesus but to conceive we have any other life or being then what is purchac'd in that sweetest name 2. Notwithstanding true it is we have life often given us by the holy Ghost the special giver indeed of holy grace which is the â—ife and being of a Christian and hence it is S. Paul had no sooner inamoured the Corinthians on the Name of Jesus then he falls instantly upon the gifts of the holy Ghost sent from his heavenly Father and from his sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to multiply on us the mercies of Almighty God as if to have been once redeemed by Christ had not satisfied his infinite goodnesse without he had also made this Redemption copious by sending his holy Spirit to re-redeem us by his graces from the relapses into sinne that render our first redemption fruitlesse unlesse it had been more copious yet by the multiplyed mercies of the holy Ghost applying the Passion of our Saviour to us by some new gift of grace bestowed upon us as often as we take religious breath into our bodies by calling on the Name of Jesus with an aweful reverence thereunto as befits all Christians to do and for this purpose it is S. Paul falls into the enumeration of the gratuite gifts of God the graces that are meerly gratis given not such as are usual and absolutely necessary for our sayntification or justification but such as rather serve to shew the multiplication of Gods holy Power and Mercies over us 3. Blessed God! how art thou perpetually out-doing thine own goodnesse by thy continual effusion of thy self upon our iniquity how art thou giving daily more and more manifestation and consequently much more admiration to the blessed Angels and Saints in heaven by multiplying thy mercies on us sinners here in earth whom all those happy spirits may give a thousand thousand times for lost when they see how we run after nothing but the sordid gain and pleasure of the world the sweets that poyson the contents that damne our soules and yet by the multiplication of thy mercies we are sweetly forc'd maugre the impulse of devil flesh and bloud to let go all our hold on the possessed shadowes of this world and to run after the promised substances of the next But how my God are we forc't to this by the manifestation of thy Power in the multiplication of thy mercies according as was said before in the Illustration Say now beloved the Prayer above and see if it be not excellently well adapted to this holy Text and to this application of the same unto our best improvement The Gospel Luke 18. v. 9. 9 And he said also to certain that trusted in themselves as just and despised others this parable 10 Two men went up into the Temple to pray the one a Pharisee and the other a Publicane 11 The Pharisee standing prayed thus with himself God I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men extortioners unjust advouterers as also this Publicane 12 I fast twice in a week I give Tythes of all that I possesse 13 And the Publicane standing afar off would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven but he knocked his breast saying God be merciful to me a sinner 14 I say to you this man went down to his house justified more then he because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted The Explication 9. 10. By a Pharisee is understood a proud by a Publicane an humble man in this place 11. By the word standing the pride of the Pharisee is insinuated With himself 't is true for he prayed neither with nor to God for his prayer is rather a vaunting of his own then a seeking of Gods glory And his insolence is great whilest he sayes he is not as other men as who should say all besides himself are sinners had he said as some other men there had been lesse arrogancy yet too much and out of this arrogancy he passeth a rash Judgement upon the Publicane whom he points out for a notorious sinner and insinuates himself to be just 12. By twice a Sabbath is understood twice a week as naming the principal day for the whole week By Tythes of all he possesseth he meanes not onely
Parents will to have him lost If then beloved we see the piety of the B. Virgin Mother of God was short of that which must be our guide how can we hope with lesse than heavenly piety to render our actions our desires gratefull to his divine Majesty And who can now complain there wants connexion in this Prayer unto the other service of the day if any doe let him see how to comply with the heavenly piety of his Eternall Father Jesus was Thirty years together subject to his Temporall Mother and then we shall soon find out a way how to sweeten the sour of our humane actions by having no desire to any of them less than heavenly nor to doe them with less than heavenly piety The Epistle ROM 12. ver 1. c. 1. I Beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercy of God that you exhibite your bodies a living host holy pleasing God your reasonable service 2. And be not conformed to this world but he reformed in the newnesse of your mind that you may prove what the good and acceptable and perfect will of God is 3. For I say by the grace that is given me to all that are among you not to be more wise than behooveth to be wise but to be wise unto sobriety to every one as God hath divided the measure of Faith 4. For as in one body we have many members but all the members have not one action 5. So we being many are one body in Christ and each one anothers members The Explication 1. THe Apostle had in his former Chapter told them much of the mercies of Almighty God and shewed them how though the wicked were justly condemned yet even the Blessed were most mercifully saved hence by that mercy so much inculcated immediately before he now conjures them that as they had now received from him the rule of Faith so they would frame their manners their actions and lives according to that rule see what is said of this Rule in the next Sundayes Epistle Rom. 12. v. 6. But to the present Text wherein the Apostle here beseecheth them by the mercy so much above recommended to live good lives answerable to their rule of Faith and to exhibite their bodies by action as well as their souls by Faith a living host to God There are many who loose the literall sense of this place by contenting themselves with the divers and those excellent mysticall meanings thereof as first by saying our bodies are living when our lives are vertuous Secondly when we are charitable because charity is the life of all vertues Thirdly when we have received the Sacrament of Christ his Body and Bloud but in very deed the literall allusion here is to the antient bloudy Sacrifices both of Jews and Gentiles made of beasts dead bodies whereunto the daily unbloudy Sacrifice of the Evangelicall Lamb is diametrically opposite first of the living Body and bloud of Christ next of living chastized but not mortified bodies of Christians being as the Apostle adviseth offered up to the service of Almighty God since such chastizements leave the bodies living by a naturall life again they live by the spirituall life of good works done in obedience to their soules command for so operating besides by corporall mortification or pennance the body is made truly a living host because it is mortified alive by becoming subject to the command of the Spirit for all mortification is a kind of living death whilest it makes the body dye to concupiscence and live to grace but these our bodies must further be holy Sacrifices that is to say imployed in holy not prophane or impure works not worshipping Idols as the Gentiles did but God as befits good Christians not polluting their bodies with unchast actions but keeping them pure and undefiled for this purity is by the Apostle 1 Cor. 7 called sanctity and is such indeed Again this bodily host must be pleasing to God for it may be living and holy in it self and yet not pleasing to God if the offerer be displeasing since many there are who fast goe in pilgrimage to holy places doe other corporall pennances and yet not rectifying together their souls obliquities their passions of the mind are nothing pleasing to God Lastly he concludes exhorting that our offerings to God be seasoned with the salt of wisedome that is be alwayes a reasonable service not fond childish curious indiscreet or singular but such as we may ever render a reasonable account of even to God who will not allow of indiscretions for reasons though indeed the Apostle here alludes to the irrationall offerings among the Gentiles who made their Idols their Gods and dedicated their services to Stocks and Stones whereas he would have Christians be more reasonable and instead of dead beasts to offer their living bodies joyntly with the acts of their believing hoping and loving souls to be a perpetuall Sacrifice or service to God all their life time and thus the whole creature will become not a corporall not an irrationall but a spirituall and reasonable Sacrifice 2. The Apostle hath pleased to make a disjunctive recommends of this entire creature in way of Sacrifice to God while in the former verse he insisted cheifly on the corporall part of the creature which we are and so advised how to render our bodies a living Sacrifice to God but in this verse he tells us how to render our better part the soul of man an acceptable oblation to the divine Majesty and since Christian perfection consists as well in declining evill as in doing good therefore this verse begins with removing evill out of our way that so we may doe good which the Apostle understands when he bids us take heed we doe not conforme our actions to the course of this unconformable world and this we shall performe by avoiding the evill that we see in men for we shall then best shew that we doe not conforme unto sinfull men when we fly their company and avoid such actions as renders them sinners and having thus followed the negative part of this counsell we are the better prepared to put the positive part thereof in execution for by not conforming to the world we whose bodies are made up of the old worldly metall shall be reformed in the newnesse of our minds by setting them henceforward on heavenly which heretofore were imployed wholly upon earthly cogitations so the Apostle by bidding us not conform to this world did not mean to forbid us making use of it but not to figure our selves like unto it that is not to become vain proud idle and the like as the world is for so we make our selves figures of this world or variable as worldlings are whereas the Apostle desires us to avoid becoming mutable or transitory figures and wisheth us to become persisting formes rather which are of a permanent nature namely spirituall formes of Saints not worldly figures of men and here reformation imports in truth